Pot hole claim rejected

peasbody83

Hi all

I’m looking at getting some advice on what to do next! My husband his a pot hole that caused £200 of damage to the car. He took photos, document and everything and filled in the necessary forms for the council. They have replied saying the claim has been rejected. They admit they knew about the pothole but they hadn’t fixed the road in time before my husband hit the pothole. This is all seems a little strange to me! Can anyone advise what steps we can take next? Do we have any legal rights as they have accepted the road did need fixing! Many thanks 

BOWFER

I had the same with a claim.
The council said they have to have 24 hours to fix the hole after it was first reported to them.
But proving when they first knew about it was impossible, so I had to give up.
Seemed a pretty rigged system.

user1977

There's no legal principle that the roads authority has to guarantee there will never be any potholes at any time, just that they've to take reasonable steps to maintain them - will depend on things like the size of hole, status of the road / speed of traffic etc.

onlyfoolsandparking

BOWFER said:

I had the same with a claim.
The council said they have to have 24 hours to fix the hole after it was first reported to them.
But proving when they first knew about it was impossible, so I had to give up.
Seemed a pretty rigged system.

Shame you didn't get a result but I can assure you it won't be rigged. As someone who works for a local authority (not in roads department I may add) the checks and balances are rigorous and very in depth.

AdrianC

How long they have to repair it depends on the class of road and severity of the damage.

They are clearly within the permitted timescales, so it's not a valid claim.